MOSCOW, July 15 (RAPSI) - The Prosecutor General's Office has appealed against the Moscow City Court's refusal to hear a high-profile case of the illegal tapping of telephones belonging to business leaders, lawmakers, journalists and high-ranking officials in 2006, Kommersant newspaper reported on Monday.

The court ruled that some of the prosecutors' documents were compiled contrary to law and also infringed on the rights of one of the persons involved.

The Moscow City Court received the case in October 2012, but soon returned it for review, claiming that the indictment infringed on one of the suspects' right to defense.
According to Kommersant, the case of illegal telephone tapping was initiated in June 2007. The investigators claimed that the defendants accepted money for tapping the telephones of many high-ranking officials, including TV anchor Andrei Karaulov and the top managers of Alfa Bank, large energy companies and the Federal Agency for Subsoil Use.

The defendants in the case are Mikhail Yanykin, former deputy head of the special technology department of the Interior Ministry's Moscow Department, former deputy head of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department Nikolai Orlov, officer of the special technology department Valery Vanin, members of the Military Intelligence Service (GRU) Vladimir Nesterenko and Igor Gorokhov, tax official Alexander Kachuk, and drug enforcement officers Alexander Gusev and Sergei Donchenko.

The operation was allegedly masterminded by Gen. Alexander Bulbov, former head of the operational support department at the Federal Drug Control Service, who was arrested in October 2007. Bulbov is believed to have paid Yanykin $50,000 a month for the illegal tapping of telephones.

The general was released on a written pledge not to leave Moscow. His case will be investigated separately.